The Maple Report #4

La Diperie’s “Montrealer”

Our neighborhood is a big tourist destination, so the main drag is lined with tons of touristy food and schwag shops.

So you just know there’ll be soft-serve ice cream, and there is, and it’s served by a little Montréal chain called La Diperie. It’s called that because they dip their soft-serve into that chocolate that hardens when cooled (like Dairy Queen et al) except they serve it in a cup.

Their special combo called “The Montrealer” is vanilla ice cream with a hard white chocolate shell, topped with crunchy maple bits of indeterminate ingredienture and provenance.

The photo above shows a small serving, which was more than enough as the ice cream was rich (I suspect this soft-serve is made with real Canadian dairy, not that weird gritty ”ice milk” of indeterminate ingredienture and provenance you get most places in the States). The vanilla flavor was there, strong and simple; the chocolate coating and maple bits were very, very sweet.

But also pretty tasty.

The coating actually tasted like white chocolate—decent white chocolate even, surprising to me, having eaten many a junky soft-serve coated with vaguely chocolate-like substances before. The maple bits released a definite, pleasant maple flavor when crunched upon, and they were not too hard, not too soft.

I enjoyed it. I ate the whole thing despite the richness, but I don’t need to do it again, like most tourist things—though I will say the quality was there, unlike with many tourist things.

Result: yes, do (but maybe share a small).